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Abstract
The Mediterranean territory in Chile is an extensive area whose natural vegetation has suffered the impact of man-made activities far more severely than anywhere else in the country. Its northernmost section (the Atacama and Coquimbo regions) is characterised by ombroclimates that range from ultra-hyperarid to arid, and by highly irregular river courses with limited spaces for phreatophilic vegetation that have been exploited by humans as fertile farmlands. However, in the river valleys of the Central Chilean biogeographic province, where the ombroclimate is at least semiarid, there may be permanent watercourses that drain from the Andean mountain range towards the Pacific Ocean that contain representations of riparian or phreatophilic vegetation linked to riverbanks or alluvial terraces, in spite of the inevitable human influence. We studied the most conspicuous plant communities with the most highly developed biomass in these riparian environments, namely willow stands dominated by Salix humboldtiana and accompanied by some autochthonous woody species, in order to clarify their floristic composition and their correct ordination within the syntaxonomy of Chilean vegetation. The data collected suggest the existence of a phytosociological association: Otholobio glandulosi-Salicetum humboldtianae ass. nova, as the majority association in the Central Chilean province. Another possible association which replaces this (Baccharido salicifoliae-Myrceugenietum lanceolatae prov.) is also proposed in the transition to a humid ombroclimate and Temperate macrobioclimate.
 The floristic contents of these Chilean communities are compared with other associations dominated by Salix humboldtiana described for other territories bordering Chile: Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. However, given that they are all located in a Tropical macrobioclimate and their companion flora is therefore clearly different from the flora present in the Chilean communities, we propose the creation of a new phytosociological class to include these syntaxonomically: Mayteno boariae-Salicetea humboldtianae class. nova. This work also ascribes the association Tessario absinthioidis-Baccharidetum marginalis (representing a prior dynamic stage to Otholobio glandulosi-Salicetum humboldtianae) to the class Tessario integrifoliae-Baccharidetea salicifoliae.
Highlights
The potential natural vegetation of Chile is reasonably well known, and has been disseminated via several successful mapping approaches (Gajardo, 1994; Luebert & Pliscoff, 2006a, 2017; Amigo et al, 2017)
As a result of this diversity of substrates in the sites where these willow stands become established, the main companion species are versatile woody plants such as Otholobium glandulosum and Baccharis salicifolia, the second of which is substituted in northerly relevés by B. confertifolia, a phenomenon already noted by Oberdorfer (1960) in his description of Tessario-Baccharidetum marginalis
These are the habitat characteristics of the communities that were described and grouped into an alliance Escallonion illinito-myrtoideae, proposed as provisional by Amigo & Flores-Toro (2017) with two associations that can be integrated in the concept of “Salicetea chilenae”; we have selected Maytenus boaria and Aristotelia chilensis as territorial characteristics of this possible class
Summary
The potential natural vegetation of Chile is reasonably well known, and has been disseminated via several successful mapping approaches (Gajardo, 1994; Luebert & Pliscoff, 2006a, 2017; Amigo et al, 2017). It should be noted that there have been different opinions regarding the concept of Mediterranean climate (Blumler, 2005) which have led as a result to the consideration of a larger or smaller territorial area in Chile depending on the case; this diversity of criteria for the Chilean Mediterranean is concisely described in Luebert & Pliscoff (2006b), who accept the map delimitation contained in the models of Rivas-Martínez (2004) as being the most appropriate, for which there is a somewhat more updated version in Rivas-Martínez et al (2011a). We have used this most recent version as a reference for the present work, these authors differ slightly (Luebert & Pliscoff, op. cit.; Rivas-Martínez et al, op.cit.) in their definition of the southernmost limit of the Mediterranean Macrobioclimate
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